About
ABOUT
The idea about a new film team that would be called PAUSILYPON FILMS was born in 1985 in a hill near Naples called Posillipo (or Pausilypon), while filming the “traces” of love couples that find refuge at night in the Greek-Roman ruins of the hill. This is where we discovered the meaning of the word that doesn’t need to be translated in other languages (pausilypon = something that reduces the tension of sadness), as well as the beneficial power of the stories that include this word, especially when they transcend frontiers and nationalistic stereotypes. From that point on, while looking for their heroes, we decided to tell these stories in radio shows, documentary and fiction films.
Operating since 1994, PAUSILYPON FILMS produced the fiction film BLACK OUT (p.s. RED OUT), 1998, by Menelaos Karamaghiolis, a co-production between Greece, France, Portugal, Eurimages, Media, that was considered the first post-modern Greek film (“Critical guide to European directors”, Wallpaper publication, 2000) and the most charming film of the year by Nikita Mikhalkov (at the XXI Moscow International Film Festival Chronicles). The film participated in many international film festivals (including XXI Moscow International Film Festival and First Feature Films Festival in Annonay) and has won 7 awards.
In 2012, PAUSILYPON FILMS completed the production of J.A.C.E. – Just Another Confused Elephant, a co-production between Greece, France, Portugal, Turkey, F.Y.R.O.M., the Netherlands, a fiction film that was completed in 2011, participated in 38 international festivals (including TIFF Toronto International Film Festival, Official Competition, Tokyo International Film Festival, International Competition, Thessaloniki International Film Festival, International Competition) and won 11 awards.
Documentary films are an important means of social intervention for PAUSILYPON.
From 1987, with GLORIA OLIVAE, directed by Menelaos Karamaghiolis – that won 2 awards, as well as the Europa Nostra Award – to 1989 with ROM – that was considered “a turning point for Greek documentary films and now everyone admits that it is a landmark in Greek documentary films history” (Critical guide to European directors, Wallpaper publication, 2000) “a masterpiece that must become a classic of the history of cinema” (Νicole Brenez, curator of the Cinémathèque française’s avant-garde film series) and participated in many festivals (including Cinema du Reel, Centre Georges Pompidou, San Sebastian International Film Festival, International Documentary Festival Amsterdam,) and won 4 awards.
In 2011, a new circle of documentary films began with MEETING WITH REMARKABLE PEOPLE. It has already been screened by ERT (the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation) with great success and characterized as the “TV show of the year”. In the first circle, 12 documentary films try – in a radical way – to trace the Greek identity, and to offer a “user guide” to young directors, actors, mathematicians and artists on the way one can transcend the country’s frontiers.
In the second 12-episode season, the protagonists are people in crisis or doomed (young jobless scientists, homeless people, underage prisoners, persecuted refugees, Greek immigrants in Germany, wounded stray animals) that find a way (without any help from a screenwriter) to deal with the deadlocks of the recent crisis in Greece through a different and mainly political intervention.
The episodes of MEETING WITH REMARKABLE PEOPLE have been screened in many international festivals, universities and schools, and show a country that is struggling to redefine its identity. These films are now part of an interactive platform, with augmented material, as the first Greek interactive documentary films.
PAUSILYPON FILMS has also created Video art films; BEYOND LIMITS (2014, National Museum of Contemporary Art) and “AGRIMIKA” installation (2015, 56th Venice Biennale).
PAUSILYPON FILMS and Menelaos Karamaghiolis have been in contact with radio audience since 1985 with their “radio films” WHERE DOES MUSIC GO WHEN WE CANNOT HEAR IT ANYMORE ? and VOICEMAIL.
They have also created special shows for the Third Programme of ERT. These shows that are very successful on the Internet as well, have been characterized as the best “radio shows of the year” and “the best radio production of the year” in 2010 and 2011 (Athens voice, Status).
Stories and the redefinition of narration in a cinema that is looking for neglected and real heroes making them protagonists; these are the guides for PAUSILYPON FILMS that insists on telling stories that can awaken and be an essential tool for dialogue and social intervention.